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PEOPLE OF THE WORTH. 



Fellow Coimtrymen : — We appeal to you as Christians and Patriots, 
to lend your influence in staying the storm that is sweeping to ruin 
both our social fabric and our political existence. Already the finan- 
cial and industrial interests of the whole country have been prostrated 
by the shock that foretells the fury of the growing storm, and solely, 
in sympathetic dread of a future, so pregnant with evil, men's hearts 
have failed them from fear, work-shops are closed, spinning-wheels 
are silent, hammers no longer ring out a merry chime to Industry's 
jubilee, strong arms and willing hands have no employment, a hun- 
dred thousand working men and women are idle, and five times a 
hundred thousand human beings are reduced to the verge of starva- 
tion, in the midst of plenty and of peace! The sturdy oak of Union, 
with scattered leaves and broken limbs, bends its solid trunk before the 
blast, tearing the ground as root after root breaks loose, and sways to 
and fro with sweeps lower and lower to the earth, from whose bosom 
its riven and prostrate form, when once fallen, can never rise again. 

Notwithstanding the dread of the future thus hanging like a funereal 
pall over every community, and wrenching from agonized hearts the 
cry "tt'/ty s^houlcl these things heV notwithstanding prophetic warnings, 
soul-stirring appeals and earnest entreaties, notwithstanding the glori- 
ous history of the past, the prosperity and happiness of the present, 
and the certain prospect of dismal ruin and overwhelming desolation 
in the future, reckless politicians are still busy, even at this perilous 
moment, in aggravating the discord and loosening the bonds which have 
heretoffjre held its together as one people^ living in unity and concord, 
under one government, with one country and one name. 
^ It is too late now foiv discussion ! The nation is in the throes of a 
mighty convulsion. Already several States have seceded and others 
are on the eve of severing their connection with the Federal Grovern- 
ment. The sacred tie once broken, the remaining States will fall apart 
as so many shattered fragments. In this wreck of the Union all the 
slave-holding States will be forced in self-defense and for mutual pro- 
tection to confederate under a common government, and if they adopt 
the present U. S. Constitution, they would present to the world a rich 
and powerful people, cemented together by equality of rights, by unity 
of interests and unanimity of sentiment. Severally dependent upon 
each other for mutual protection, how much stronger will be the com- 
pact, sustained as it will be, by ties of kindred, by pecuniary interest, 
by similarity in education, by mutual confidence, by natural affinity, 
and by a common welfare. 



[2] 



C ty^/ 


ci-^ 


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"Would there exist among the several Northern States, should the 
present Union be dissevered, that harmony of feeling and of interest, 
which will thus bind the whole of the Slave-holding States together as 
a unit? 

Would not Massachusetts, whose barren rocks and sterile soil are 
so genial in the prolific growth of ultra fanaticisms and of every 
kind of religious and political intolerance, still domineer over and per- 
secute her orphan sister States? Would not New York in the pride of 
wealth and strength, ml'., with imperial, — yea, imperious sway, her 
weakened and impoverished New England neighbors? 

Would not toil-worn and patient-enduring Pennsylvania, goaded 
with envy and jealousy, stretch forth her strong, brawny arm to wrest 
the sceptre from her Northern rival, enervated by luxury and fancied 
security ? Would not Ohio, impatient of law and moral restraint, 
make Indiana her vassal and exact tribute of Illinois? 

Would not Michigan erect Gibraltar defences on her peninsular 
shores and for the protection of her own harvests, lay an embargo on 
North- Western wheat in its transit to tide-water? Would not Brig- 
ham Young rule the Mormon Kingdom with despotic sway, and forever 
aever the over-land communication between the Atlantic and Pacific 
coasts? Would not California be forced in self-protection to establish 
an independent empire ; and Oregon and Washington be left to the 
desolating warfare of their Indian tribes? 

Or would all these individual traits and popular tendencies, in striv- 
ing and unsympathizing States be stayed, that they may unite in a 
common warfare to subjugate the Southern States in order to extin- 
guish slavery? Even such a combination has no terror for the South; 
for the Southern people in the defence of their liberties and their rights 
will sacrifice their fortunes and their lives: — and in saying this, we 
but homstly express the feeling that now pervades all comniunities in the 
South. There is a fixed and solemn determination to stand or fall in 
defence of their rights as a sovereign people. Among those rights 
they elaint protection from hostile interference with their domestic 
affairs: that protection was guaranteed to them in the Federal Consti- 
tution, which is the basis and the sole and only basis of Union between 
the several States, and when that Constitution shall be perverted to an 
instrument of oppression, thoy will withdraw from rnion with the 
oppressing States. 

THE CAUSES OF THE PRESENT TROUBLES. 

That Constitution has been violated in act and deed, by the Northern 
States not only by the action of State Courts and by popular mobs, in 
preventing the arrest of fugitives from labor; and by State Laws nul- 
lifying Constitutional and Congressional enactments for the protection 
of the South; but it has been openly and defiantly violated by the peo- 
ple and the Executive OflBcers of several States in encouraging these 
violations and pandering to a demnralized puhlic sentiment. 

The Constitution has been further violated in spirit and in seiUimcnt, 
by many of the Northern people. They have assumed to themselves 
an arrogant superiority and an insulting control over the rights, the 
conduct and the opinions of their Southern brethren. They have made 
Northern anti-slaverg views TRE ONE GREAT RULING IDEA in all g<rv- 



[3] 

eritment, in all social inte-rcourse, and in all religions ioleration. South- 
ern people who honestly differed from them in opinion, have been stig- 
matized, even on the floor of the United States Senate, as "ruffians 
and barbarians; " and because they dared to uphold the rights accorded 
to them by the Constitution and the Laws of their country, they have 
been driven off with imprecations and denunciations and excluded from 
Christian fellowship and Church communion with their Northern 
brethren. Thus have all the great Christian denominations, save one 
or two alone, been rent asunder, and Southern members of the same 
household of faith, been exiled from the homes and altars of their 
fathers, because forsooth, their presence was offensive to their neo-ro- 
worshipping brethren. Thus have great bodies of fellow-christfans 
been split in twain, and bigoted intolerance and Satanic fury have 
usurped the dominion in Christian hearts and expelled from human 
souls the only terms of future life, "brotherly love and Christian 
charity." Thus have Southern churches been expelled from social 
intercourse and religious communion with Northern churches, and 
Southern Christians been held up to infamy and branded as felons and 
infidels and outlaws, unworthy of association. 

All bonds of affection, all kindness of feeling, all Christian good-will 
and peace, have been counted as nothing; all justice and right have 
been denied ; all law and equity have been trampled under foot by our 
fellow-christians and our fellow-countrymen. 

Inflammatory appsals, incendiary threats, moral suasion, and other 
compulsory devices, have been used to bring the Southern mind in sub- 
jection to Northern anti- slavery sentiments. Failing in these, scornful 
tirades, merciless abuse, and insulting provocations have been resorted 
to : all these have preyed upon the Southern heart and weaned its affec- 
tions from its Northern brethren — all these have rankled in the South- 
ern mind and produced distrust and suspicion in the place of confidence 
and respect, and all thesk are the foundations of the loresent terrible 
commotion that is fast severing the political Union between the South 
and the North ! From year to year these insults and wrongs have been 
growing in number and increasing in strength, and tvith this increase 
there has grown up in the North a monstrous and nnhallowed spirit of 
aggression, and recklessness, that has hesitated at no wrong, even the 
most heinous; that has justified acts, even the most atrocious; and hai 
attempted to perpetrate crimes even the most revolting! Do the North- 
ern people think their Southern brethren are "stocks and stones," and 
can not feel these things? Do they think human nature can never be 
pushed beyond the power of endurance? Verily, "they have sown to 
the wind, and are now reaping the whirlwind." But these violations 
were borne with patience, for a long time, by an insulted and aggrieved 
people, because they had strong confidence in the justice and honesty 
and ultimate repentance of their brethren of the North, and were, 
therefore, willing to await the slow reaction of public sentiment in 
favor of Law and Equity, in favor of good feeling and Christian fel- 
lowship. 

When, however, the Republican Convention met at Chicago, they 
adopted, amid tumultuous cheers, a resolution, ichich was thrust tipon 
the^ Convention at the last moment BY THE ABOLITION SECTION, and 
which was intended as the grand clap-trap climax to their Anti-Slavery 



[4] 

Platform. That Resolution, tlie last to be adopted, was made the lead- 
ing watch-word in an excited and heated political canvass, and it went 
forth as a vital principle in an ad captandum creed., to still further 
heat and excite the popular mind, and poison and alienate the popular 
feelings of the North against the Constitutional rights and the domes- 
tic institutions of the South. That Resolution declare.*;, "that all men 
are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain ina- 
lienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness." And what righfs are these, which this Resolution con- 
tends for? The Northern Republicans surely do not mean that they 
themselves do not already possess and enjoy the rights of liberty and 
the pursuit of happiness? For whom, then, do they demand these 
rights? The whole spirit of their platform, outside of the ordinary 
questions of political economy, re/a^cs solely to the ]->rotection of '■'South- 
cm servants''' acjalnst all control as property; and there is no meaning 
and no application iu the Resolution, unless the Convention meant to 
say that the Southern hondman ?r«s created equal to his Southern master, 
and "HAD AN INALIENABLE RIGHT TO HIS LIBERTY AND HIS FREEDOM." 

This, at least, is the construction which the South placed upon the 
Resolution, and the North has never denied the correctness of that 
interpretation. Thus for month after month, has the South felt, and 
grieved in the heart under the painful conviction, that this noble aph- 
orism, which inspired our Revolutionary fathers to assert their rights 
and to fight for them against the oppressions and tyranny of their 
mother country was wrested from the Declaration of Independence, 
to be thus used as a taunt and a threat against the South, soleh/. because 
the Southern people had presemd their Government and their Institu- 
tions JUST AS TUEY HAD BEEN ESTABLISHED hy the signers themselves 
of that Declaration and the very authors of that aphorism. 

TJiis declaration of open and avowed hostility, to their Constitutional 
rights, to their guarantees of protection, to their political equality, to 
their domestic institutions, to their external security, to their internal 
peace, to their social tranquility, to their lives, to their fortunes and to 
their very existence as a people and as individuals, caused the people 
of the South to stand aghast and think their Northern brethren were 
indeed demented. 

But patience and good will still ruled the hour! 

It tvasfor no idle cause, that this great and glorious Union should 
be destroyed ; and with strong hopes that this tide of fanaticism, urged 
on by artful demagogues, would be rebuked by the masses in the late 
political conflict, they anxiously awaited the issue. 

Alas! how delusive were their faith and trust in man! 
The Anti-Slavery party — a viere sectional p>arty, that had not the 
audacity to call itself national, triumphed; and that very triumph, 
by a domineering majority, thus voting io sustain a sectional hostility 
against the rights of the minority, was the overt act of the North, that 
CRUSHED THE LAST HOPE OP THE SoUTH. Ihc political existence of 
(he South was ignored, and its Constitutional guaranfcfS and its socutl 
rights henceforth are to he in the keeping of th ir avowed enemies and 
THE STRONG ARM OF THE FEDERAL TO-SYER IS TO BE ALLIED TO 
ANTI-SLAVERY FANATICISM. 

The Union of the States was a Union for peace, a Union for mutual 



[5] 

protection, a Union on the basis of the Constitution, a Union for exact 
justice, a Union for the maintainance of the rights of all, a7id these 
things, the North has said in its political platforms and its religious 
creeds, through its preachers and its politicians, and by their final tri- 
umph at a popular election, these things the South shall not have! 

Thus has been broken the last link in the tie of mutual confidence 
and afiection, that bound the North and the South together as one 
people: Thus has the Constitution been east aside at the ballot-box, 
and by a formal vote of the Northern masses, the South has been 
deprived of the poicer of further protection WHILE IN THE Union : and 
thus it is, that the Southern people under a conviction forced upon 
them by passing events, that these anti-slavery precepts will 
BE CARRIED INTO PRACTICE, have risen as though by common instinct for 
their self preservation, and now stand as one man, in an attitude of 
self-defense. 

This is a simple and candid statement of the political condition of 
our country. It is true in our exposition of afi'airs, we have given the 
Southern view of the question, and in so doing have borrowed the 
language and pressed the arguments that are currently used among the 
Southern people. These arguments may be sophistical and the lan- 
guage may be dictated by passion and excitement. Be it so; thi 
PACTS, that have caused this tipheaving of the people, are patent to the 
whole world — they are historical truths that can not be denied, and we 
have drawn this vivid picture that you may Letter understand the tone of 
public feeling in the South; and thus understanding it, you can the 
more speedily allay the excitement, by kindly considering their com- 
plaints, rather than blindly attempting to force them into submission. 

THE NORTH MUST SPEAK. ' > 

If the Southern people have misunderstood the feelings and designs 
of the North, then as honorable men, hasten to undeceive them and 
cheerfully, freely and frankly agree to grant the guarantees they ask; 
all that the Southern people ask of you, is an assurance of protection 
from the aggressive hostility of your people to their rights under the 
Constitution and the Laws of our country. 

If the Northern people are unwilling to grant these, then the appre- 
hensions of the South are well founded, and obstinate politicians, who 
are willing to sacrifice their country, rather than lose place and power, 
will soon bring about a conflict with an exasperated and defiant people, 
RESISTING, as they verily believe, an unlawful attach not only, upon 
their rights and equality as a Sovereign people, but even UPON THEIR 
LIBERTY and THEIR LIVES AS INDIVIDUALS. 

In this national crisis, it is the duty of every citizen and every 
patriot, to use his influence in appeasing the wrath of infuriated Sec- 
tions, and demand an adjustment of the differences betiveen them, ere a 
collision in hot blood, sweeps them beyond the control of reason, ren- 
ders them deaf to the calls of peace, and destroys forever all hopes of 
reconciliation. Kind words and conciliation alone, can soothe these 
angry passions, and there is no individual however humble and obscure, 
that can not exert some influence in bringing about a healthy reaction 
in public sentiment in favor of a peaceful settlement of our troubles 
in preference to a resort to the barbarous arbitration of the sword. 



[6] 

Then let each and every individual in the North be aroused to prompt 
action, that the pending dangers mayl3e averted. Let the people come 
together in public meetings, free from party managers and intriguing 
demagogues, and if untrammeled in tlv fxprestion of their hon^Mt $enti~ 
nients, THRY WILL GIVE JUSTICB TO THB SoUTH and will purge them- 
selves of the aholiti^nisti, tchs have led them astray. Let the people of 
the North rise en masse, and LiKB TRUi asd honist patriots as thet 
ARE, extend the olive branch of peace and reconciiiation to the aggrieved 
people of the South. 

WHAT HARM HAS SLAVBRY DONH THE NORTH ? 

Let them ask themselves and each other if this institution of 
glavery has ever done them any harm? Did it not exist before 
this Union was formed? Did it not exist when this Federal Con- 
stitution was adopted? and will it not still exist even after the Union of 
these States shall be dissolved? Has not slavery been extended to territo- 
ry after territory and slave State after slave State been admitted into the 
Union under the operations of the present government? and has not 
the North notidthManding all this, continued to grow in wealth and 
prosperity, and have not Northern people spread over the common 
territoriei, a«d made of them state upon state, V9itil the free State* 
now outnumber the slave-holding Statesf Has not all this been done 
under the present Constitution and the present laws of our country, 
and wherein hxs the North beeti injured f Did the South when it had 
an over-ruling majority in Congress and held the Executive power of 
the Federal Government ever interfere with th» rights or the prosperity 
or the material interests, or the social order, or the religious sentimente 
of the North? Was not the South when it had the power, always con- 
wientious and just to the North? Then why comes this new order 
OF things, these ncin constructions of THAT SAME OLD CONSTITUTION, 
the mcment the North has an unchecked sectional control over the Federal 
Governmentf Are you fellow-countrymen, acting out the principles of 
our fathers? Did they ever exhibit this hostility to their Southern 
brethren? Did they ever deny to their Southern brethren equal rights 
and equal benefits in our common country and under our common 
government? But you are told by your political leaiiers, that their 
new fangled construciiona of the great constitutional laws of the country 
have triumphed at the polls and "you must not back out from your 
principles;" — that is from the principles of the platform adopted, — 
NOT BT YOUR Rbvolutionary SIRES, — lut by yow political leader* 
loit Spring at Chicago. 
THE CHICAGO PLATFORM NULLIFIES THE CONSTITUTION. 

And what are these principles? They are assumptions based as 
your Southern brethren feel and believe upon a construction of the U. S. 
Constitution, contrary to the agreed rights of the South and against 
the decision of the highest judicial tribunal established by that consti- 
tution. The old bulwarks of the Constitution and the judgment 
of the Supreme Court have been supplanted by the Chicago platform, 
and owing to the disruption of the democratic party and the fanatical 
delusion of a portion of the Northern people, the assumptions of that 
platform triumphed at the last Presidential election, for the first time, 
Hince the foundation of our Government. How, then, can these be 



[7] 

called the principles of bur forefathers, whe'n our fore-fathers neither 
advocated them, nor acted upon them? It is only after a lapse of three- 
fourths of a century, that our Government is called upon for the first 
time, by a popular vote, to carry them into execution: stronger evi- 
dence of the unconstitutionality of these assumptions, could not be 
presented, even had not the South unanimously protested against them, 
when they were first enunciated and has continued to this moment, to 
denounce them as a treasonable suppression ©f their rights under the 
Federal compact. * 

THE PEOPLE REPUDIATED THE CHICAGO PLATFORM, NOT- 
WITHSTANDING MR. LINCOLN'S ACCIDENTAL ELECTION. 

Now let us consider that Presidential triumph, and see what it is. 
In eighteen Northern States, Lincoln received 1837 thousand rotea, 
and in fifteen Southern States he received only 27 thousand. 

The figures seem prophetic, for 1837 was a year of disaster and ruin 
to our country, and a repetition of these fatal figures in the vote for 
Lincoln has brought upon us calamities, a thousand-fold greater. If 
to 1837 we add 27, as indicating the Southern vote, we obtain 1864. 
the year when Lincoln's successor will be elected, and at that election 
let us hope will terminate forever, all discord and animosity between 
the two great geographical sections of our country. But these 1864 
thousand voters are not the people of the United States. With the 
exception of the 27,000 Place-hunters in the South, who voted for Mr^ 
Lincoln and who have so annoyed him for appointments to office since 
his election, the whole South voted against the assumptions of hia 
political platform, and in the Northern States that platform was oppos- 
ed by one million six hundred thousand patriots who preferred their 
whole country, and the principles of their fathers, to the disloyal plat- 
form of a sectional party. Thus do we find sixteen hundred thousand 
votes in the North and twelve hundred and sixty-six thousand in the 
South, in all 2866 thousand votes, against the 1864 thousand which 
elected Mr. Lincoln. Is this a triumph to boast of? With the entire 
South and nearly one-half of the North opposed to it, the Republican 
party truly should be cautious in attempting to force upon the people 
of this country untried political principles which have been repudiated 
by nearly two-thirds of the whole nation. With the certain knowledge 
that two millions eight hundred thousand voters, and a majority of 
more than one million of the people, are utterly opposed to these anti- 
slavery principles, and to these revolutionary and unconstitutional doc- 
trines, they should not trample in defiance upon the expressed will of 
the people. North as well as South, and say "we have no concessions 
to make but are determined to retract nothing, to yield not a single 
inch, and to stand firm under every provocation and every threat, even 
though the land be deluged with blood, and wasted and desolated with 
fire and the sword." 

With flippant tongues, these leaders who have led their deceived 
followers away from the Constitution of our fathers, tell them "to stand 
by the Constitution as it is," — that is as their platform interprets it, — 
"and to make no compromises that would involve them in the guilt of 
moral treason and justly render them the scorn of mankind!" What 
then is this moral treason, which is dreaded more than actual treason 
against their country? 



[8] 

SHALL A NORTHERN CONCEIT OUTWEIGH 
SOUTHERN EXISTENCE? 

Fellow countrymen of the North ! let us reason together about this 
matter. Are you willing, at the call of your political leaders, to wage 
a war of extermination on the South, and throw away all the blessings 
and prosperity you have enjoyed, shut up your factories and workshops, 
turn your teeming population out of employment, and bring them to the 
agonies of starvation, and the madness of desperation, and let riot and 
famine, confusion and an&rchy usurp the reign of law and order, solely^ 
SOLELY, because of the fear of yielding up a personal opinion, upon a 
matter that concerns you in no way whatever? Is not this whole 
question of slavery, as it exists in the South, a mere abstract sentiment 
loith you, without any bearing upon your freedom of conduct, your 
liberty of action, your pursuit of happiness, or your expansion in 
the common territories ? 

On the other hand, when climate forced your forefathers to send their 
negroes to the South, and when climate fastened them upon the South, 
until they became incorporated in the material existence of the South 
as much even as the land they till, did not our Revolutionary fathers, 
regarding the question as so pregnant of good or ill to our whole country 
expressly provide that it should work out its own solution? and, in order 
that it might be protected from all outside interference — such as you 
are now attempting — did they not guarantee in the Federal Constitu- 
tion that fugitives from labor should be sent back to their homies, and 
that each State should decide upon the question of slavery for itself, 
and for itself alone, and no State, or people of a State, should ever 
resist or interfere with the rights of the people of another State in 
slave property? Under this old Federal Compact you have prospered, 
and so has the South; but now you are called upon by your party 
leaders to sacrifice your prosperity, and annihilate the Constitutional 
rights of the South, in order that you may not be guilty of the "moral 
treason" of being inconsistent to an unlawful anti-slavery sentiment, 
which your teachers and your preachers have thrust upon your con- 
sciences, as if you had to answer for the sins of a people whose con- 
sciences are as pure and undefiled in their opinion, at least, as your 
own ! 

Truly, fellow countrymen of the North, is not this carrying an 
intolerant conceit, in respect to the rights and the privileges of others 
even beyond the pale of common decency? Does not this look like 
that spirit of persecution which first broke out among the Pilgrims who 
landed on Plymouth Rock, and which dictated the Blue Laws of 
Connecticut, and burned women at Salem? Then it struggled in 
the weakness of infancy ; now we behol'd it in the pride of strength, 
and inflated with power in the full vigor of mature development. 

THE POLICY OF ANTI-SLAVERY POLITICIANS. 

The tone and spirit of the appeals of your political leaders, and your reli- 
gious teachers, for some years past, have aimed to carry your feelings and 
your sentiments beyond the spirit of the law, and the bounds of reason 
and justice. Your politicians do not intend to give the South any 
GUARANTEES OF VKACE AND SECtriUTY IN THE Union. TJuy have labored 
for years to commit you to an uncompromising hostility to slavery and 



(9) 

to its final and total extinction. They have done their utmost to fos- 
ter and cherish in your bosoms a principle subversive of the rights of 
the South, and while thus inculcating this revolutionary sentiment, 
they craftily prepared your minds, for the bloody strife of section 
against section, which they clearly foresaw would result whenever the 
Federal Government stood pledged to carry into practice this sentiment, 
and resolve it into an actual assault upon the rights and the safety of 
the South. That time has arrived; and your political leaders are pre- 
paring you for the conflict, by arousing a military enthusiasm and en- 
rolling volunteers to subjugate the South.. The Legislatures of Ohio, 
New York, and Massachusetts have already passed resolutions, tendering 
to the Federal Government both men and money to force the South into 
submission. And do you think the South can be driven by force into a 
fraternal union with you? So far from it, these measures only tend to 
strengthen the disunion movement, and arouse in the South, already 
complaining of your aggression, a determined spirit of resistance. See 
the eflfect of your coercive resolutions upon the Bordeislave States, that 
have heretofore resisted the secession movement of the Cotton 
States. They have, with perfect unanimity through their people and 
their legislatures, declared that no Northern army, to coerce the South, 
shall march through their borders, and that they will resist to the 
utmost any attempt to coerce the South. Thus have you made these 
States allies of the secession States, and you will make their people, in 
resisting a mighty wrong, the aiders and supporters of disunion. And 
yet, there are no truer States in the Union than Kentucky, Virginia, 
and Tennessee. Their gallant sons have ever been the first to rally 
around the flag of their couotry, and pour out their blood with a free- 
dom amounting to recklessness in defence of their country's honor. 
Their noble-hearted and patriotic Statesmen have ever been the first in 
the Councils of the Nation to stay the hand of ultra fanaticism and 
nullification, whether from the North or from the South, and with soul- 
stirring eloquence they have ever counselled peace and conciliation. 
Their people have ever been sound upon every question of national 
politics that embraced the great interests of their whole country. North 
as well as South. And even in the present crisis, Kentucky's leading 
Statesman was the first to propose measures of peace and justice, and 
with outbursts of thrilling eloquence he beseeched you to stay the 
angry strife with words of peace and kindness. But your political lead- 
ers have rejected all overtures, and have called upon you to arm for the 
conflict, and make preparation for battle! They have said a just, and 
honorable and peaceable compromise shall not be made, and happiness 
and prosperity shall not be restored to our country. They have told 
you, you shall have no voice in this matter, but you must fall into the 
ranks and march to the South, according to the programme marked out 
by them, for your performance. " Contemplated treason and disunion," 
they anticipated as the necessary consequences of their political success, 
and ''the enforcement of the laws" is now the rallying cry, to gather the 
hosts of fanaticism under the banner of the irrepressible conflict ! 
Let us look back and see if the events of even the past year do not 
sustain this view of the strife into which your politicians are now lead- 
ing you. 

When the great leader of the Kepublican party shrunk from openly 



CIO] 

eneonragiBg Old John Brown to make his raid upon Virginia, and seize 
Tipon the Government arsenal at Harper's Ferry, he was th^n afraid of 
the outburst of public indignation, which he rightly apprehended. 
But when, on his return from Europe, he found Old John Brown idol- 
ized as a "martyred hero," and half a million of men under the name 
of Wide Awakes, in honor of Brown's Kansas Company of Free-booters, 
organized to carry out his doctrine of the irrepressible conflict, and 
when, last summer this great leader made a triumphal march from the 
Atlantic shore to Kansas, and reviewed the teeming mass, ready to do 
battle in this unlawful and unnatural strife against their brothers in 
the South, then, thbn, in the exultation of his heart, he wared his 
hand to the assembled hosts, and shouted in tones that sent a convulsive 
shudder throughout the Southern heart, "Who's afraid!" Afraid of 
what? Afraid to inaugurate the bloody conflict "that was to be irre- 
pressible until every slave that stood upon the soil of the Continent of 
America had been liberated, and free labor should with victorious ban- 
ner reign supreme, as the sole and only kind of labor tolerated through- 
out the length and breadth of this land, North and South, East and 
West, from the arctic circle to the torrid zone, from the Atlantic borders 
to the Pacific coasts ! " 

Afraid of what? Afraid to raise the banner of this irrepressible 
conflict, and march to the bloody carnage and warfare, even though the 
Laws and Constitution of our Government should be torn to pieces as so 
much waste paper; even though the whole South should be desolated 
as a barren waste, its property destroyed, its homes burned, its wives 
and daughters ravished, and its rivers overflowed with the blood of its 
slaughtered victims. 

"This is the drama of the irrepressible eenflict. Let us Inausurate 
it! Who's afraid?" 

SHALL WE ACT AS STATESMEN OR AS DESPOTS ? 

Brethren of the North ! there are some of us in the South who still 
have confidence in your justice, in your sense of right, in your inten- 
tions to abide by the principles of forbearance and concession, which 
animated our forefathers when they established our Government, and 
gra.«ped within its protecting folds the diverse interest^! of every section, 
however antagonistic they might be to each other. We also believe 
that this Government is the best that ever was made, or ever can be 
made by mortal man, and that no sacrifice that we can possibly make 
should have any consideration whatever, when we are called upon to 
decide whether this Government shall stand or fall ! This is the 
decision that you and that we, are now called upon to make ; and, if 
that decision be not in favor of peace and brotherly love, in favor of 
justice to all, and mutual forbearance towards each other, then indeed 
will future generations look on the record of our suicidal acts, upon 
the pages of history and wonder that we, boasting of our enlightened 
civilization, of our glorious freedom, of our unbounded prosperity, of 
our unalloyed happiness and of our faith in the Christian religion, 
should, in the folly and madness of an evil hour, have abandoned 
them all forever, and have brought upon our country the despotisms 
and barbarisms of the dark ages! 

We are summoned, fellow citizens of our common country, to rise 



[11] 

above the feelings and frailties of our poor human nature, 'and assume 
the duties and responsibilities of Patriots and Statesmen ! We are 
called upon by the crisis now upon us to lay deeper and broader the 
foundations of our Government, and strengthen its bonds so as to resist 
in all future time the fury of popular fanaticism, and the crumbling 
process of disintegration. Are you yrilling to make the necessary sacfir 
fices in the performance of your part of this great and mighty work? 

You need not ask what you are to do. We have shown the feeling 
which your political principles, and your anti-slavery creeds, have pro- 
duced in the South, and which your disguised Abolition leaders and 
party managers have aggravated to such a pitch of excitement, until at 
last the people of the South have been forced to say to the people of 
the North, as Abraham said to Lot, "Is not the whole land before.thee? 
Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me; if thou wilt take the left 
hand, then I will go to the right; or, if thou depart to the right hand, 
then will I go to the left." 

Why this apathy and indiflference to the demands of your Southern 
brethren? Are not their complaints as just and as important as those 
which our forefathers sent up to the Throne of Great Britain? Can 
you learn no lesson by experience? Do you not read on the pages of 
history that the Government of Great Britain exasperated the American 
Colonies by treating their petitions with contempt ? And will you, too, 
turn a deaf ear to the appeals of your countrymen, and mock at their 
jxist complaints? King George said to his American subjects, "In this 
way you shall trade, in this way you shall think, in this way you shall 
worship God;" and the Colonies resisted King George. Do you sup- 
pose the South will not fight to maintain and retain rights and liberties 
as important and as momentous to them as those, to obtain which our 
Revolutionary fathers fought so long and so unflinchingly ? 

But, you say, "the Southern States have seceded from the Union, 
and abrogated the laws of the Federal Government; they have taken 
possession of the forts erected for the defence of those States, and 
have occupied the custom houses established for the convenience of 
their people ; they have captured the government vessels, and fired 
upon the flag of our country." 

True ! And all these things did also the rebellious subjects of King 
George, and when they asked for concessions and conciliation, he 
enforced the laws against them at the point of the bayonet, and in his 
attempt to coerce them into submission, he only awoke from his deluaion 
when it was, alas, too late! 

Do you think the arrogant advisers of King George were right in 
resorting to coercion for the enforcement of the laws, and for the pro- 
tection of the royal property, in preference to listening to the com- 
plaints of the Colonists, and adopting measures for the redress of their 
grievances? 

Old George denounced his American subjects as " traitors, and scoun- 
drels and rebels." And what do you call your Southern brethren? '^ 

But you think you are in the right; for your conscience does not 
convict you of having done the South any wrong. King George said, 
"I am in the right, and I have no wish but the prosperity of my domin- 
ions, and to prevent anarchy." 

" But," you say, "we are in the right, although King George was not.' 



[12] 

History tells us "that nine-tenths of all the tyranny of this world has 
been perpetrated by persons heUeving themselves in the right. Argu- 
ing on that convenient premise, the Dey of Algiers would cut off twenty 
heads of a morning; Father Dominic would burn a score of Jews in 
presence of the most Catholic King, and the Archbishop of Toledo 
and Salamanca would sing Amen! Protestants were roasted, Jesuits 
hung and quartered, at Smithfield, and witches burned at Salem, and 
all by worthy people who believed they had the best authority for their 
actions." 

" But you say our political principles, and our anti-slavery sentiments 
are popular, as was proved in the last Presidential election; and, having 
the approbation of a ruling majority of the people, we see no good 
reason for changing those sentimens, or modifying those principles, 
especially under the threats of the South." 

"Popular! So, indeed, was the American war popular in England in 
1775, for the address for coercing the Colonies was carried by a vote of 
304 to only lOG against it in the House of Commons, and by 104 to 
29 in the House of Lords." 

"Popular! So was the revocation of the Edict of Nantes popular in 
France; so was the massacre of St. Bartholomew; so was the Inquisi- 
tion exceedingly popular in Spain." .;.i 

THE EFFECTS OF COERCION. 

Fellow countrymen, can you not furl your conflict banner, an'd extend 
the right hand of fellowship to your brethren in the South? They 
may be rebels and traitors in your opinion, even as our forefathers were 
in the opinion of King George; but for all that, they have fled from 
your tyranny and oppression, from your hatred and aggression, and 
are you going to treat them, even as the British treated our forefathers, 
by trying to coerce them into obedience, under the same pretext of 
enforcing the laws? Are you willing, fellow countrymen, to be the 
supple tools of your political leaders, like so many Hessians, to carry 
out their revolutionary mandates? Is it not rather your duty to de- 
mand of your State and National Legislators that you, their masters 
and their superiors in all primary decrees, shall have a voice in this 
question — this great primary question — the solution of which is to 
decide the destinies of our country, for fraternal peace or for fratricidal 
war; for a Union as christians and as patriots; or, for an eternal dis- 
union, with bloody wars and endless carnage, such as even the fiends of 
hell would be ashamed of? Do not both duty and interest require that 
you take the management and decision of this perilous question out of 
the hands of your reckless political leaders, who have brought this 
crisis upon you, and who are now urging you on to the final consum- 
mation of their inhuman and blood-thirsty desigfns? 

Nay, more! Do not every consideration, and every impulse, that can 
animate the heart of a christian patriot, and an honest man, impose 
upon you the obligation to offer terms of reconciliation to your Southern 
brethren, to soothe their aggrieved feelings, and to give assurances of 
safety to" themselves, and of security to their rights, and thus bring 
them back to a desirable Union with you? 

Nay, more ! Does not every consideration of humanity call upon 
you to do first all these, and then, even then, to stay the uplifted hand 



[13] 

of angry resentment tliat is raised against a brother's life, and to bear 
with him in patience until his good sense and sober reflection shall 
have returned, until passion and excitement shall have subsided, until rea- 
son shall have resumed her sway over his thoughts and feelings, until 
patriotism shall have triumphed over disunion, and, finally, until he 
shall renew his fealty to our Common Government, and thus unite us 
all again, as one people, under one flag, even the same glorious old 
Banner of the Union, no longer rent and torn and trailing in the dust, 
by the strife of Star against Star and Stripe against Stripe ! 

One single sign in the North of returning good will and good faith, will 
accomplish more in disarming the South, and in purchasing peace, than 
will a thousand millions of treasure expended in munitions of war, 
for the slaughter of American citizens. One single acknowledgment 
of the rights of the South will achieve a greater victory than can a 
million of soldiers triumphing in a hundred pitched battles ! 2he 
South vjill capitulate to friends and h-ofhcrs, hut will never surrender 
to an armed force. And how can we in Kentucky, fellow countrymen 
of the North, roll back this secession tide, when you shut your ears to 
the complaints of the South, and allow your politicians by the adoption 
of coercive measures, to force our people, even our Union -loving peo- 
ple, into the ranks of the Secessionists to fight under the banner of 
Disunidh? Are not their rights our rights? Do you think the Border 
States can see their sister States pour out their blood, and sacrifice their 
lives, their all, in defence of those rights, and they not join in the 
struggle ? Because our people have more calmly borne their grievances 
and clung fast to their hopes of defence in the Union, do not trust too 
much to their patience and loyalty, for the Border States and the Cot- 
ton States are only divided in opinion as to the measure and mode of 
redress, and not as to their common complaints against the Republican 
party. 

Already under the apprehension of a. Northern coercion movement, 
" Southern Rights" and anti-coercion military clubs are organizing in our 
midst, and the secession ball rolls onward. Your Congressmen say they 
have no compromises to make ; your State Legislatures say, we will force 
the South to submit to the laws : your Generals and your Captains 
say our forces are ready for active service against the South. And all 
these things sink deep in the hearts of our people and make them 
think there is no hope of justice from their Northern brethren. Silent- 
ly and gloomily our people prepare to meet force with force, and the 
secession ball rolls onward : a year ago, you told the South — "we also 
will laugh at your calamity; we will mock when your fear cometh," 
and the people of the South are beginning to heed the warning — "for- 
get not the voice of thine enemies: the tumult of those that rise up 
against thee increaseth continually," and the secession ball rolls onward. 

Even those who have battled earnestly and nobly for the Union are 
faltering in their devotion; and thus it is, as our people prepare for the 
bloody ordeal, their passions become inflamed, and the secession ball rolls 
onward — onward — onward; gathering strength and might and power, as 
it rolls onward! And shall its fatal tread press the sacred soil beneaith 
the shades of Ashland, where repose the ashes of him, "who prayed God 
he might die ere this glorious Union was dissolved." Shall the life cher- 
ished hopes of this noble patriot fade away as a dream? Shall the wisest 



[14] 

and beat constructed system for the advancement of human happiness 
and human prosperity ever devised by the genius of man, be thus de- 
stroyed, in order that fanaticism may reign on the right hand and 
anarchy rule on the left? Shall our children crushed beneath the yoke 
of despotism and tyranny, point the finger of scorn to us, their apos- 
tate fathers, as truckling cowards, who were afraid to acknowledge an 
error and repair a wrong, and lost their birth-right in their pride to 
be consistent on an abstraction? 

It is for our Northern friends to answer! 

They alone can settle the commotion that now upheaves the Union 
from its very foundations and threatens to crush the Temple of Liberty, 
at once and forever ! 

ACTUAL REVOLUTION NOW EXISTS. 

The people of the South are in a state of revolution ; they have risen 
in defense of their inalienable rights to life, to liberty, and the pursuit 
of happiness. Their authority for it is expressed in the Bill of Rights 
as set forth by our forefathers and which is incorporated in the Con- 
stitution of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, as the fundamental 
principle of all Republican governments, in the following words : — 
"That all power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are 
founded on their authority and instituted for their peace, sa^ty, and 
happiness, security and protection of property; for the advancement 
of these ends they have at all times an inalienable right to alter, reform, 
or abolish their government in such manner as they think proper." 
This is the broad basis of our several State Governments and it is the 
very corner stone of our Federal Government. In both governments 
the people are recognized as sovereign; and in their hands alone is 
placed the power to alter, reform, or abolish their government in such 
manner as they think proper. Constitutions are but the creatures of 
their will and Executive Officers and Legislative Assemblies, are sub- 
ordinate instruments under the forms of those Constitutions. When 
the people abolish a Constitution, they rise above its obligations, and 
its power over them ceases to exist. 

This is the attitude assumed by the people of the seceding States, 
toward the Federal Government ; they have revoked their assent 
to the U. S. Constitution, and as a necessary consequence deny the 
authority of the Federal powers created by that Constitution. Three- 
fourths of the States ratifying their act would make it binding on both 
sides. 

Whether right or wrong, the fact of revolution on the part of the 
seceding States, exists in stern reality, and the question arises, how 
shall it be treated? The Secessionists say, in justification of their 
action — "had they not withdrawn in a formal and orderly manner, 
by conventions of the people, then, they would have continued under 
the authority of the Federal Government, and been subject to its laws; 
and any resistance to those laws by them as citizens, would have been 
treason and rebellion, and punishable as such. By the act of secession 
they have withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the Federal Government 
and are no longer amenable to its laws; they are no longer citizens 
and subjects, but an independent people, approachable only be media- 
tion and conciliation, or if the dissolution is complete, through nego- 



[15] 

tiation by treaty." This right of the people of a State or province 
for just causes to rise above the constituted authorities and declare their 
independence of them, was first asserted as an active principle, by our 
Revolutionary fathers, when they threw off the yoke of Great Britian. 
It has since been frequently recognized by the American people, and 
the Federal Government, as an inherent right belonging to all people 
and every nation. The U. S. Congress, expressed sympathy with the 
Spanish American Provinces when they declared their independence 
of the Government of Spain; they likewise aided and succored the 
people of Greece, in their struggles for liberty; they encouraged the 
people of Hungary in their revolution against the tyranny of Austrian 
despotism and even within the past year. Garibaldi, in overthrowing 
the Government of Naples, has been hailed as the deliverer of Italy. 
Need a stronger instance of the application of this principle by the 
Federal Government be cited, than that of Texas: did the tJ. S. Gov- 
ernment aid and encourage Mexico, in her efforts to subdue her rebel- 
lious province and enforce her laws; or did our Government recognize 
the right of the people of Texas to assert their independence of Mexico? 
The answer is to be found in the additional star emblazoned on the 
Flag of our Union ; far better would it have been that that star had 
never been added, if it is to be obliterated by force and violence. 
Strange that the very error that we have condemned in other Govern- 
ments, in their mode of treating a people resisting their tyranny and 
oppression, should be committed by our Government. We wonder 
why Austria did not conciliate Hungary; why Mexico did not indulge 
Texas ; why King Bomba did not cease to oppress the people of Naples ; 
why George the Third did not repeal the stamp act: we think the peo- 
ple oppressed by these over-bearing Governments, were right in their 
demands for a redress of their grievances and the Governments were 
wrong, reckless and intolerant in their efforts to force their people into 
subjection by the strong arm of the military power; and yet we, the 
most liberal minded people on earth and with the light of these 
examples before us, are about to commit the same old folly, of using 
force instead of conciliation, to bring our seceding States back again 
in the Union. 

To the Noble Band of Conservative men in the North 
we have an earnest word to say: 

In the foregoing Appeal, we have endeavored to show the causes 
that have brought about this revolution among Southern people, and 
how it is claimed, that they have been oppressed by the acts of the 
Anti-Slavery Party of the North, their rights denied and their lives 
and property imperilled; that Anti-Slavery Party will soon have the 
Federal Government in its hands, and by the aid of the purse and 
sword will be able to carry its unconstitutional and tyrannical policy 
into forcible execution against the Southern States. The policy of 
that party is in its nature and effect, revolutionary, and the South has 
shrunk with dread from its blighting consequences and sought refuge 
from its enforcement by a counter revolution. We, in Kentucky, 
have ever had an abiding confidence in the honesty of our Northern 
brethren and would have been willing to have awaited the solution of our 
differences at the ballot box, under a firm conviction that that was the 



[16] 

proper mode of redress for our wrongs, and that truth, reason, and 
justice, would there eventually triumph. 

But the hasty blunder of the Cotton States in taking separate 
action in the mode of redress thought by them the most advisable; 
and the determined folly of a majority in Congress, to purchase a 
triumph for the I^epublican Party even over the wreck of our glo- 
rious Union, have brought our perils to a momentous crisis, and in 
this the hour of our danger, we beseech you, Fellow-Couutrymen, 
not to abandon us! In the struggle between the Union and the Black 
Republican Party, each for its existence, you are to decide, which shall 
live and which shall die ! Thousands and hundreds of thousands of 
true and devoted conservative men in the South, who have had to bend 
before the secession hurricane, are waiting your action, with beating 
hearts and anxious minds: when the howl of the tempest has passed 
and the people are prepared for calm reflection, then the voice of those 
men can draw the people back to their allegiance to the Federal Gov- 
ernment, under a flag of truce from the Republican Party. But will 
the Republican Party abandon their hostilities and proclaim peace and 
safety to the South? It is for you, the intelligent, conservative and 
controlling power in the public opinion of the free States to decide ! 

Our hopes for the salvation of this country are centered upon your 
exertion! The destiny of this nation is in your hands! 

In conclusion. Conservative Brethren of the North, we off"er you an 
apology, for aught we have said in this Appeal, which seemed to charge 
you with any agency in bringing about this unhappy and deplorable 
crisis. Far be it from us, even to appear ungrateful to you, who have 
ever held fast to the principles of the Constitution as our fathers estab- 
lished it and have fought step by step against the nullifying, and sec- 
tional principles of the Black Republican Party. We have looked 
with admiration upon you in your efforts to protect and preserve the 
rights of the South against the assaults of a majority of your own peo- 
ple and we grasp you to our hearts as brothers; we recognise you "as 
brothers in liueage, as brothers in allegiance and in the midst of all 
perils, as brothers in affection, still ! " To you the people of Kentucky, 
by a formal vote of their Legislature, have said — '•Rr^olvcJ — that "We, 
the Representatives of the people of Kentucky, return our cordial and 
heartfelt thanks to the thousands of people in the Free States, ^ho are 
now engaged in rolling back the tide of Black Republican fanaticivsm : 
we trust they will continue their patriotic exertions, and we pledge 
ourselves to unite our exertions with theirs in the holy work of pre- 
serving the Union of these States." 

And may the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, bless and prosper you 
in this work and aid you in bringing it to a peaceful and happy con- 
elusion ! 

A VOICE FROM KENTUCKY. 

Louisville, Ky., January, 1861. 



B^" Merchants and others wishing to send this Appeal 
to their friends and correspondents, can prociire copies 
at the rate of $1 j>er hundred, or $10 per thousand, on 
application to HANNA & CO., Printers, South-East cor- 
ner of Main and Third Streets, Louisville, Ky. 



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